House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica doesn’t want to be blamed for the potential wreck of the surface transportation bill.

Mica (R-Fla.) told a group of officials from various state departments of transportation that they were partly to blame because his legislation incorporates many of their ideas.

“In fact I did sort of a silly thing,” Mica said. “I went to people like you and asked you to help develop the bill.”

The transportation bill is now in a holding pattern as leaders chart a path forward. Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) said, based on his conversations, the bill will last between 18 months and two years and will not end dedicated transit funding — two issues that Mica is holding firm on.

“It befuddles me that the transit community, which has no source of revenue, is demanding that they stay in and get a share of the Trust Fund,” Mica said Tuesday.

Mica and staffers have also said they still want a five-year bill. “I guess that’s a bad thing to have a long-term bill, isn’t it guys and ladies? God forbid you should have some dependable federal partner in this process,” he said in the sarcasm-laced speech.

House GOP leaders have privately indicated that Mica’s strategy in both writing the bill and selling it to his fellow Republicans has been flawed.

LaTourette, who has his gripes with several major provisions in Mica’s bill, acknowledged the intraparty tensions stirred up by the legislation.

“There’s a constant tension within our conference to write a bill that only Republicans can support — do you write a bill that can pass the House with only Republicans? There’s stuff back and forth.”

LaTourette didn’t go out of his way to criticize Mica, but stuck up for Boehner, saying, “I give the speaker a lot of credit.”

“He’s not bigfooting things. I’ve served with speakers in the past who sort of dictated what happened. The reason we don’t have a transportation bill is that Mrs. Pelosi, when she was the speaker, wouldn’t let [former T&I Chairman Jim] Oberstar write the bill he wanted to write, but that’s not what Boehner does. He gives it off to the committee chairs and sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes it doesn’t."

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 3:11 p.m. on February 28, 2012.